


hindsight twenty-twenty

by Anonymous



Category: Polygon/McElroy Vlogs & Podcasts RPF
Genre: (background) Jenna/Simone, Daddy!Pat, Getting Together, M/M, Mutual Pining, Parenthood, Past Relationship(s), Post-Divorce, no really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 17:41:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21932341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: It's not that Brian doesn't know how to enjoy himself without Pat around. It's just, it's New Years Eve, and despite Simone and Jenna's best efforts to the contrary, he only makes it to about ten-thirty before Simone's cornered him in her kitchen, all seven-foot-eight-in-heels of her, leaning over him with red mouth frowning:"I swear to God, Brian, I am going to text him andcompletely blow up your spotif you don't at least spend New Years with him."
Relationships: Brian David Gilbert/Patrick Gill
Comments: 9
Kudos: 153
Collections: Anonymous, Polygolidays Gift Exchange 2019!





	hindsight twenty-twenty

**Author's Note:**

  * For [strongandlovestofic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/strongandlovestofic/gifts).



> For katy strongandlovestofic, my lovely, I'll barely bother anonymizing myself, as you'll know it's me in a hot minute. Merry Christmas, and Happy Candlenights; my world is brighter for you being in it. Thank you for being on this ride with me.
> 
> With thanks to whitachi for helping me pick the very best neighbourhood to plunk poor Pat in for this one, and to segs for their affirmations. <3

It's not that Brian doesn't know how to enjoy himself without Pat around.

It's just, it's New Years Eve, and despite Simone and Jenna's best efforts to the contrary, he only makes it to about ten-thirty before Simone's cornered him in her kitchen, all seven-foot-eight-in-heels of her, leaning over him with red mouth frowning.

"I swear to God, Brian, I am going to text him and _completely blow up your spot_ if you don't at least spend New Years with him."

"He's probably got other plans, Simone!"

One of Simone's perfect eyebrows arches. " _Patrick_ ," she deadpans, "doesn't have other plans."

"Don't be rude."

"I'm not being rude! I just! He's _our_ Patrick. Here, look," she says, and fishes her phone out of a pocket of her jumpsuit. "I still have him on Find My Friends. I can tell you, for certain—" she pauses as the app loads, "—there, see, he's at home. Probably moping. You'd be doing him a _favour_."

"Sim, I—" Brian starts, "Look, I mean, yeah, obviously, everyone knows I've got a thing for Pat, alright? But it's not—it's fine, okay? I'm fine being his friend, I don't need anything more than that."

"Brian," Simone sighs, putting both her hands on his shoulders. "Please. Don't lie to Mama Simone."

"Who's lying?" Jenna asks, as she comes into the kitchen carrying an empty box of wine. She crushes it against the counter and puts it in the recycling, then comes over to circle her arms around Simone's waist. Simone slouches so that Jenna can hook her chin over her shoulder. "Are you still trying to get him to go see Pat?"

"You're in on it too?" Brian exclaims.

"I'm calling you a Lyft," Jenna says, taking her phone from Simone's pocket. "You can take some of the craft beers, they're fancy as fuck, he likes that."

"No," Brian groans. "It's not fair, you guys ganging up on me. I'm telling you, we're better as fr—"

Simone shakes him, clacking his teeth around the word. "Come on, coward!" she chastises him. Brian gets the distinct impression he's going, whether he chooses to or they just kick him out and don't let him back in.

"Oh, are we bullying Brian?" Karen asks, also entering the kitchen, and Brian groans. "Is this about Pat?"

"No," Brian answers, as both Simone and Jenna chorus _yes_.

Karen smiles her Cheshire smile at him, and Brian knows he’s lost. 

—

The truth is, he does like Pat. He's just not sure if it's, you know, _like_ -like anymore. He… used to be pretty sure. They used to be a lot closer, but… Brian guesses there's only so long you can flirt with someone before it has to cool, by necessity. Only so many times you can watch someone smile and avert their eyes and pull back from the joke before it stops reading like nerves and starts reading like a soft no. All things in their slow slide to entropy.

It hurts, a little, right under Brian's ribs sometimes, when he thinks about it. He'd been nursing a crush on Pat since before he was hired, then pushed it down so he could be respectful towards his coworker, then had it flare up again, obvious and raw, while they were streaming together, then had it cool again while there was that content drought, then slowly build back up again over the last two years of working together more or less as equals, only to cool again in the last half of the year, for seemingly no reason at all. It's normal. It's natural for people in it for the long haul to go through changes in a friendship. Brian can handle the ebb and flow without making it weird, and he has. He likes to think he's done a good job, actually—it's not like his life these past two years hasn't been full of other people. Some have even been so kind to kiss him, and more.

So he doesn't do a lot of thinking about it, honestly. Thinking would only be circular, a spiral into obsession, and he likes Pat; he likes him, genuinely, too much as a person to make him into the _one that got away_. He's glad for what he has, and he doesn't want more—

—except for when he does, quietly, when they're laughing together and Pat smiles at him and pushes his hair out of the way and looks at Brian, like, like Brian's the answer, and Brian's heart pangs with _why didn't we, ever? Not even once? I tried so hard. What didn't you see in me?_

It would be easier, if he'd never seen an answering hunger in Pat's eyes. It would be easier, if he couldn't feel Pat's gaze on him from across a room as if under a spotlight, heat-seeking. But he's never—and Brian's never—Brian always _has_ been a coward when it comes to Pat and he doesn't know why. It would be easier, he thinks, if Pat didn't matter to him. If he could walk up to Pat and say, hey, do you wanna? And Pat could say yes, or he could say no, and Brian could take that answer as it lies.

But he couldn't. He didn't want to…

...well. He didn't want to. And that's it.

—

He makes it across boroughs with about twenty-five minutes to spare to midnight. Pat's new apartment is a second-floor walk-up somewhere in Woodside, just a truly absurd number of subway connections from the Vox offices, and honestly, it's kind of a step down from his last place. Brian hadn't thought about it too deeply, out of respect for whatever financial realities had made Pat move so far out and into someplace much smaller and, somehow, even _dumpier_ than the last one. Brian slips through the broken grate on the building's door and takes the uneven borscht-smelling staircase two steps at a time.

He can hear the television going from outside the door—no shade on Patrick, it's just that kind of place—and pauses. Chews his lip. Knocks on the door, before he can second-guess himself. He doesn't have any idea what he's going to say when Pat answers the door, because somehow he doesn't think _Jenna, Simone, and Karen got drunk on romance movies and bullied me into re-enacting Love Actually_ will go over well with Pat.

Time stretches out, long enough that it passes through the metaphorical 'crawling to a halt in times of great emotional distress' and into a seemingly purposeful silence as Brian stares at the door. He can still hear the television. Hmm. He knocks again, louder, just in case.

The television noise quiets, but doesn't go all the way off. Brian frowns as he pulls out his phone. Even though he hadn't wanted to come, now that he's here, he's committed to the bit.

 _I can hear you in there_ , he texts Pat. _I come bearing beer_.

He watches the dots of Pat's reply shimmy up and down on his phone, then disappear, then reappear as Pat types. Finally, Pat's terse reply: _why?_

 _You're watching Die Hard_ , Brian replies. _I love Die Hard, and I hate New Years parties, please can I hang with you_.

Pat's slow to respond, this time. When no dots appear, Brian breathes out through his nose and closes his messaging app. He raps on the door, this time louder and to a rhythm. "Do you wanna drink some craaaaaaft beeeeeeeeeeer?" he croons through the door.

He hears movement from inside, the shuffling and creak of Pat's footsteps across the floor, the click of Pat unlocking the door. The door cracks open an inch, revealing a sliver of Pat's face. "Go away, Anna," he replies.

"... _let's get high_ ," Brian sing-songs, making the universal two-fingers-to-the-mouth gesture that he has a joint.

Pat's mouth cinches in, a fleeting expression of mischief before smoothing over to something more firm. "I can't tonight, man. Sorry."

Brian's stomach—and nerve—plunges; of course, there's a non-zero chance Pat is _actually_ busy tonight, that he _actually_ had plans for New Years. Maybe he has people over. People who he doesn't want to mix with friends from work. Maybe he has a _date_ over.

Not that there'd be anything wrong with that. He doesn't—he doesn't owe Brian anything, and even if, even if he did, it's not like Brian's been a model of chaste pining.

Brian's about to open his mouth to stammer an apology when he hears, faint and quavery from inside the apartment: "...daddy?"

Brian freezes. Pat freezes, too. _Daddy_ , Brian mouths, questioning, and Pat's expression shutters. That voice was—that voice was too soft, too high, too undeniably _childlike_ to be anything—anything _freaky_. Not like he'd judge; not like Pat couldn't, in the privacy of his own—but the look on Pat's face isn't ashamed, it's _caught_. It's… upset.

"You have a _kid_ ," Brian whispers, and Pat jerks his head back inside, almost closing the door on Brian.

"I'll be right back, baby," Pat calls, and his voice is something Brian's never heard before, soft and sweet and unpracticed. His face appears in the crack of the door again, open wider now that his cover's blown. He fixes Brian with a look, challenging. "Yeah. I do," he states.

"You have a kid!" Brian repeats, a little louder, and a little more excited. Pat frowns, but Brian can't help the smile that spreads across his face, bubbling up from the confusion and the relief and the—okay, mostly the confusion, honestly, but that's second to the desire to know _everything_ about the situation, immediately. "Can I meet them? Pat! What the fu—I mean, heck!"

"It's not, uh, you can swear, it's fine," Pat says, "And, uh. If you want? I guess?" He laughs, embarrassed. "I'm. Sorry. It's. It's kind of a wild story."

Pat undoes the chain on the door and lets Brian into his apartment. It's as sparsely decorated as the day Brian'd helped him move in, only with new Christmas lights in rainbow colours thrown over the curtain rods, giving cheer to the lone futon and entertainment center.

Only, this time, there's a little person sitting up in the middle of the unfolded futon, centered in a nest of blankets. Brian's not great at estimating ages, but they're somewhere between baby and preschooler, with a cloud of brown hair rucked up on one side from sleeping, blinking distrustfully with huge, dark eyes at Brian as he toes off his shoes in the entryway.

Pat closes and relocks the door. Takes a breath Brian can hear. "So, this is Charlie," he says, wary. "My daughter."

"Hi, Charlie," Brian says, softly, and Charlie frowns at him, saying nothing.

"It's, uh, late," Pat explains, crossing over to pick Charlie up around the armpits and lift her against his chest. Her chubby arms wrap around his neck, eyes still trained on the stranger that is Brian. "She was keeping me company while I waited for midnight, but I think it's time she goes and sleeps in her bed." Pat cranes his head to look down at her, pressing a kiss to the mess of her ringlets. "Right, baby?"

Charlie shoves one round fist into her eyes and continues to say nothing.

"I'll be back in a sec," Pat says. "You can, uh, make yourself at home. Put the beer in the fridge?"

"Okay," Brian agrees, and Pat disappears into the single bedroom and closes the door, leaving him alone in the small living room. Brian lets out his breath, sighing with surprise and the sudden ebb of tension, running his hand through his hair as he takes in Pat's living conditions.

It's messy, absolutely crowded wall-to-wall with kid toys and tote bags overflowing with laundry, a highchair and stroller folded up but still massively footprinted in the space. There's bottles in the drying rack, and little plastic plates and forks. Brian follows the cleared path to the fridge and puts the beer inside; there's a flat of meal replacement shakes and a bunch of squeeze packs of applesauce, leftover casseroles in grey tupperware, a half-empty open carton of eggs, a pack of hot dogs wrapped in plastic wrap. Half a flat of juice boxes, reduced sugar.

It's not bad, honestly; everything about Pat's apartment screams _trying his best_. He wonders, how Pat's come into possession of his _kid_ —it had to have been recently. After he moved, because all of this stuff is new since then. Not so long that it feels natural or lived in, yet.

Brian takes two of the beers to the futon and waits. The television is paused on John McClane yelling at… something. Brian can't remember the exact part of the movie it's from. The futon is cluttered with stuff, tucked in and around the tangled blankets: a sippy cup, a ring of plastic keys, two Dr. Seuss books, a plastic giraffe that looks well-chewed, various strata of toy-sediment. It smells, faintly, of milk, which Brian feels guilty for noticing. 

"Oh, Pat," Brian murmurs, and starts collecting the plastic doo-dads and putting them into a nearby bin. And then once he's done that, it's easy to take the cups and things back to the kitchen and run them under the tap. He's never been a parent, or a big brother, or a babysitter, even, but he's an alright roommate, he thinks, and he doesn't mind… helping. Brian's untangled the blankets and is laying them back out on the futon when Pat returns, empty-armed.

"I'm sorry, it's…" Pat apologizes, standing in the little cleared space in the living room with one hand in his hair and the other on his back. "It's kind of been—"

"I don't mind, Pat," Brian says, before Pat can chastise himself for not cleaning while taking care of a _kid_.

"The nanny has the holidays off, so," Pat gestures to the space. "It's usually, uh, a little better than this."

"Seriously, Pat, I don't mind," Brian says, flipping the last blanket into the air and letting it settle slowly down on the futon. He grabs the scattered pillows and throws them against the wall so there's something to sit against, even with it folded out. "So, um. She's really yours, huh," he asks, and Pat laughs, at least, instead of being offended.

"Yep," Pat sighs, rubbing his face. "Me and my ex, we did the thing."

Brian winces, standing kind of awkwardly. He doesn't want to be the first person to sit on what's probably, effectively, Pat's bed. Pat takes it out of his hands when he sits down on the futon, reclining on one elbow, and gestures for Brian to sit down. He does, handing Pat one of the bottles.

"So how…" Brian starts, fiddling with the lid of his beer. "How old is she?"

Pat bites his lip. "Uh… she's, two and a half. She was born… uh," he continues, then stops, and takes a deep breath. "This is like, the deep fuckin' Patrick lore, man."

"I wanna hear it," Brian responds, turning on the futon to tuck one foot under his other leg. "Whatever you wanna tell me."

Pat scrubs his hand over his face, almost angrily, and takes a long pull of his beer. Takes a long time swallowing. "My, uh, my ex and I, we—we found out she was pregnant just after we moved to New York," he starts, haltingly. "It was a bad scene, like, we weren't sure if Polygon was going to be permanent, if _New York_ was going to be permanent, and she… wanted to move back to Maine to be near her family, and I wanted to stay in New York, and we were kind of like, well, we have like nine months to figure it out, and…"

Brian waits for the end of that sentence, but it's some time coming. Pat just sits there a few long seconds, chewing on the side of his mouth, staring at the label of his beer bottle. The dimness of the Christmas lights cast most of his face in shadow, the more subtle of his microexpressions lost, but his body's doing a good enough job.

"And she didn't want to stay," Brian prompts, gently, and Pat sighs.

"I don't blame her," Pat says, immediately. The corners of his mouth flatten as he swallows. "We got married real young, we had—we had different ideas on what marriage meant. On what raising a family meant. On, fucking... you know. _Stability_."

Brian puts his hands over his mouth. " _There's a new Daddy in town…_ " he breathes. "Oh my God, _Patrick_."

Pat shrugs, letting out an embarrassed laugh. "I mean… it wasn't a _lie_..."

"No, no, it's brilliant," Brian replies immediately, dragging his hands down his face. "It was in plain sight the whole time, what the fuck."

Pat looks down at his hands. "It would have been good. I thought—I thought, then, that it was gonna be fine. Then Charlotte was born and it was…" He sighs, and there's another long pause, during which he takes another pull. "My wife hadn't been able to find work, pregnant and in a new city, and it was… it was really hard on her. Being home, just one income, no one around to… help." He sighs, head sagging, ashamed. "Not even me. I was, just—I was utter dogshit to her. I loved Polygon, I wasn't gonna leave. She had no one here. So she left. She went home."

Brian lets that sit, heavy in the air. "That's… that sucks," he tries, eventually.

Pat huffs, ill-humoured. "Yeah. It sucks. Because it just made sense for her to take Charlie with her, because what was I gonna do? Live with a kid and a roommate? Pay for nanny, with my hours, on a producer's salary? When she could move in with her folks and still find work?"

"She's with you now, though," Brian says, leaving the sentence open like a question.

"Yep," Pat says. The lights glint in his beer as he tips it to his lips again. "My ex, she got a really great job offer overseas, in the mission. South Africa. Temporary, but… a few years, at least. Probably until Charlie's ready to start school. And we figured, well, it'd be chaos to relocate Charlie to a new country, and for her to have to juggle that while she was trying to make the most of the opportunity over there, so… here she is."

"So… hence the move," Brian asks. "Queens, no roommates, a bedroom with a door and everything."

"And a fifty-minute commute to work," Pat grouses. "Charlie's got the bedroom, and I've got," Pat pats the futon, "this thing. It's not so bad. And it's not like, hah, it's not like I'm trying to impress any one with my sweet bachelor's pad, these days."

"Oh," Brian says, fumbling the cap of his beer in his fingers. "Yeah, I guess—I guess it's hard to focus on other things, huh? Not a lot of hot dates." Brian’s relief is a guilty prickle in the back of his throat. 

"Yeah," Pat sighs. "I'm either, you know, at work, or trying to pick up some extra cash with streaming while she's out with the nanny, or I'm, you know, trying to be a fucking _dad_ to this kid, and I don't know shit about anything. I'm learning everything I know about her from the _nanny_ , for fuck's sake." He sniffs, and rubs his nose. "I don't know how to do any of this."

"I mean, it's kind of a lot," Brian offers, and Pat snorts. "It's understandable you've, uh, you haven't really…"

He doesn't want to say what he means: _that you haven't been yourself_. Or: _that you've checked out of your friendships with everyone at Polygon_. Or, _that you've barely said a word to me in two months that wasn't related to work, and I was terrified you'd just started hating me for no reason_.

Pat collapses onto the futon and puts the heel of his beer bottle against his forehead. "I've been shit," he agrees, without Brian needing to go into the specifics. "I'm losing my grip on things at work, and I'm a shit friend, and a deadbeat dad, and—"

"Whoa, hold on," Brian says, cutting Pat off. "There's no way in hell you're a deadbeat dad."

"I missed _two years_ of her life, Brian," Pat says, shooting him a look from where he lays. "She didn't even know who I was when I picked her up at the airport. She cried for her mom for like four days straight."

"But you're here for her!" Brian says, leaning into Pat's space. "She doesn't know it yet, but she's got a dad who loves her enough to move to _Queens_."

Pat stares at the ceiling. He opens his mouth a few times, closes it. Finally, he frowns. "Do I? What does that even fucking mean, Brian. How the fuck am I supposed to… I barely know her. I made her, and I don't… I don't feel… _anything_. Just tired, every day. Tired, and fucked up, and scared."

Brian's never seen anyone more in need of a hug in his life, and yet been so unwelcome to provide it. "I'm sorry," he murmurs, because there's nothing else he can do.

Pat sighs. "Every time she smiles it's just, great, start the timer until the next time she's gonna cry until she pukes because I have no idea what she wants. Like, she's, she's cute as hell, Brian, and she's so good at—at figuring shit out, already, just in time for me to come along and fuck it up because—"

Pat makes an expansive gesture with his hand, encompassing both the room and himself. "—because this is what she's getting from me. An emotionally absent father she never sees, and a shitty apartment, in the middle of a fucked up world. I don't how to—I don't know how to—fucking—" Pat swallows, hard. "I don't know what it means to love a kid, Brian. They said it would just be, I would, you know, I'd see her and I'd think, _this one's mine, I love her_ , and it's just. Nothing. Like, I'll protect her and I'll feed her and everything I'm supposed to do but, but what the fuck am I supposed to—"

Pat trails off, sniffling, and throws his arm over his eyes. "Sorry. Fuck. Sorry. That's some heavy shit."

"It's okay," Brian says. Because it's—he doesn't know what to say, but it's still _okay_. "It sounds like, um, do you have someone you're talking to about this?"

"Yeah," Pat says, still into the crook of his arm. "I had to cut back a bit because everything's, just… so fucking expensive now, and my old therapist is still in Brooklyn, but, yeah. I'm dealing with it. I don't wanna fuck her up any more than I'm already gonna."

"That's good," Brian says, looking away. He's criminally underprepared to provide any sort of… counsel, pretty much. He didn't even _know_. Pat didn't want him to, and that knowledge sits like a thorn in his ribs. "I'm… I'm sure you're gonna be fine," he says. "Kids are pretty strong."

"Yeah," Pat says, sounding hollow. "I've heard that."

Brian's already almost at the end of his beer; looking over, Pat's almost there as well. "Do you, um, do you want another beer?"

"Sure," Pat replies, and Brian's grateful for the reason to get up off the futon and head back over to the fridge. There's a photo on the fridge door he hadn't noticed before, or maybe it just lacked context: a petite blond woman holding a slightly younger Charlie, pink-cheeked and smiling. It looks like they're in an apple orchard. Pat's ex, Brian figures; he's never seen a photo of her before. He's barely even heard of her before, honestly, no more than necessary to get the broad strokes of Pat's life.

He wonders if Pat's always been this closed off, or if—or if it was just this, this unsutured wound. This thing he made into some big secret, closing off that chapter of his life. Brian doesn't know how to ask. So, when he gets back to the couch and Pat's pushed the blankets around so he can sit back against them, he asks instead: "Do you wanna watch more Die Hard?"

“Please, for the love of God,” Pat says, reaching out to take his beer from Brian.

Brian settles himself on the futon, leaning back against a pile of pillows. He doesn’t mean to sit so close to Pat, but—well, he does. Mean to. It’s second nature. “Where do you stand on whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie?” he asks, as Pat picks up the controller and backscrolls a few minutes. 

"That whole argument is tedious," Pat says, “People with nothing more interesting going on in their lives will form tribes about any ridiculous thing. It’s like the pronunciation of GIF.”

“Okay, but it _is_ GIF, though,” Brian interjects, and Pat snorts. Brian cracks the lid of his beer and clinks it with Pat. “Come on, Pat, what’s your ruling.”

Pat smiles at the screen. “There’s a reason I’m watching it in December.”

Brian laughs, and Pat does too, a subdued little embarrassed thing. “Doing a lot of movie watching home alone recently, huh,” Brian guesses.

Pat sighs puts the controller down, without pressing play. “Yeah, I mean… she’s in bed by seven, every night. That’s been the… that’s been one of the hardest thing to get used to. I used to have five more hours in a day to do shit, and now… you know, it’s this.”

Pat gestures to his living-room-slash-bedroom again, and Brian looks around. “You could have had people over,” he points out. “You think Jenna would mind sitting on the floor? Her sewing table is three tires and a board.”

“Yeah, but…” Pat hedges. His eyes track to the closed bedroom door. “You know, she’s sleeping.”

“We can be quiet,” Brian counters, and Pat raises his eyebrows. “Okay, Simone can be convinced to be quiet. Or is it—you didn’t want anyone to know, did you?”

Pat’s shoulders come up and he clicks his tongue against his teeth. “I’m gonna get some chips or something,” he says, rolling off the futon to his feet. “Are you hungry?”

"Why didn't you want anyone to know?" Brian presses, and Pat physically retreats into the kitchen and opens a cupboard, taking out an opened bag of tortilla chips. The look he gives Brian when he turns back towards the living room is dangerous, like a cat with its ears pressed back, but Brian keeps pressing, "Are you ashamed of her?"

"Of course I'm ashamed," Pat spits out.

"You can't… you can't hide her away for the rest of your life like she's a dirty secret, Pat," Brian says. He doesn't even know her, but something in his heart aches for her anyway, the part of him that needs to be loved. "I mean—you're her _dad_ —"

Pat slams his hand down on the counter, broad palm slapping loud enough to startle Brian into silence. "I'm nobody's fucking dad, Brian!" he all but shouts, then jerks back and looks at the closed bedroom door. "People _expect_ me to be her dad, and I'm just a fuck-up," he continues, false-quiet, lip curled like he's spitting the words. "Everyone I tell about her, it's gonna be like you: they're gonna drag the whole shitty story out of me, and they're gonna judge me, and they're gonna tell me I have to fucking _do better_ , alright, and I'm fucking _trying_ , Brian."

Pat's voice breaks on the _trying_ , and he tears his glasses off, shoves the heel of his hand into his eye. "I'm _trying_ ," he repeats. "I just… I just needed to figure shit out, by myself. Figure out how to be her dad, on top of—fucking, everything else."

"Sorry," Brian says, chastised, and Pat puts his head in his hands, rests his elbows on the counter, and sighs with his whole body.

"Thanks," he mutters.

"I mean, for what it's worth," Brian says, "I think you're doing an okay job?"

"That's what I strive for," Pat says, into his hands. "Patrick Gill: He Was An Okay Dad."

"I kinda get the feeling everyone's just kinda okay at being a parent, in the end," Brian says. " _They fuck you up, your mom and dad, they don't mean to, but they do_ ," he quotes, and Pat stifles a dark little laugh and rubs his eyes. Brian rolls to his feet off the futon and walks into the kitchen. "You know, Pat," he says, slowly, "You, um. It's okay to not be okay about this. You could have… asked for help. We would have helped."

"I know," Pat mutters, and stands up straight again. "I just—it's so wild, like, hey guys: turns out I'm a father. Yes, I knew; sorry I didn't tell anyone other than Tara for literally three years. No, no questions, please."

"Yeah, that's kind of a bummer," Brian admits.

"I'm sorry," Pat apologizes, readily, finally meeting Brian's eye. "I fucking ran. I just, checked out of everything: work, friends, streaming…"

Brian waits for the _and you_ with bated breath; he hopes it's not wishful thinking, those words he feels at the edges of Pat's silence. " _I_ would have helped," he prompts, and Pat nods, looking down at the floor again.

"Yeah," Pat says, so quiet Brian can barely hear it. "I know."

Brian swallows. Rubs his hands on his pants. "Look, I've been, uh, I've been trying to figure out if you want to hug it out, because, that's all I'm really good for, here, I've got hugs and jokes, that's it."

Pat's shoulders quiver as he laughs. "Sure. Fuck. Yeah, I need a hug," he says, and holds out his arms.

Brian's heart beats hard against his ribs, his dumb traitor heart that doesn't know now's not the time, as he steps into Pat's space and wraps his arms around his middle. Pat curls in on Brian, tucking his head against Brian's shoulder, and lets out a long sigh that ruffles the ends of Brian's hair. "I'm sorry," he repeats, mumbling the words into Brian's shirt. "It was easier to run away from it. Then I just got used to it."

"It's okay, Pat," Brian says. He runs his hands soothingly over Pat's back, the heather-soft worn shirt and the knobbly bones underneath. "Guess I came and found you whether you wanted it or not."

Brian can feel the curve of Pat's smile against his neck, a feeling that melts warm and soft all the way down his spine. "Thanks," Pat whispers, and squeezes Brian more tightly.

They stand like that a while—longer than friends hug, probably, but Brian's had to throw out his heart a few times with Pat before, and it always keeps doggedly coming back for more. So he lets himself enjoy this, for as long as Pat wants him back. For as long as Pat needs. Eventually, Pat turns his head and sniffles. "Sorry, I'm gonna snot all over you," he murmurs, but Brian just smiles and strokes down Pat's back again.

"It's fine," he says, just as soft, and opens his eyes—the green-blue LED of the stove clock glows back at him, displaying 12:08. "Oh," he breathes, "we missed midnight."

Pat snorts. "Fuck, alright. Happy new year, Brian," he says. Brian can feels Pat's palms spread wide on his back.

"Happy new year," Brian replies, then hums the first few bars of _Auld Lang Syne_ ; Pat joins in after that, laughing, _god, I don't know the words_ , stumbling together through the less-remembered parts,. Brian pulls back partway through, taking Pat's hands in a dancing frame, and they sway lazily against each other in Pat's little kitchen while they giggle through the rest.

"Good job, Pat," Brian says when they're done, and Pat bows primly in response. He's smiling again, at least, a real smile, looking down at Brian, and Brian—well, it's the new year. Time is an illusion, but, he's always been stubbornly fond of the superstition that how you spend the first night of the new year will be how you spend the rest of them. He presses his lips together, chews on them. "I didn't think this'd be how I spent the new year," he says.

Pat tilts his head. "Oh, yeah?"

Brian still hasn't let go of Pat's hand. It feels right. Or at least—it feels like it's the only thing giving him courage. "Yeah," he says. He hopes he's not imagining the glimmer of hope in Pat's eyes. "I got kicked out of Jenna and Simone's party because they, uh… they didn't want me to waste the chance to kiss you at midnight."

It sounds ridiculous when he says it out loud—a schoolyard dare—but Pat doesn't look surprised. Even in the uneven rainbow lights and the watery stove light, Brian can watch the blush bloom across his cheeks. His mouth quirks up at the side, a shy little smile. "Oh," he says, barely a sound. His eyes dart to the bedroom door. "Even after…?"

"Well, I didn't know then, but, yeah," Brian replies. "Even after."

Pat touches his tongue to the corner of his mouth and ducks his head, considering. Brian counts his breaths—one, two, three—before Pat exhales his own and raises his head again. "I won't tell them we missed it," he says, carefully, and Brian feels his face break open with a smile.

"Yeah?" he says, bouncing up on his toes.

"Yeah," Pat confirms. "If you're—if you're okay with—Charlie's not going away. We're, uh. We're a package deal. Warts and all."

"I've never been a step-boyfriend," Brian says, and Pat flushes darker at the word. "But, um. I'd like to give it a shot."

"Me too," Pat says, and his hands slide from Brian's grip, up his shoulders, to Brian's face, cupping him around the back of the skull. Brian has only a moment before the stomach-plunge of _oh, I'm about to be kissed_ is obliterated by the singing high of everything after, the stutter-thump of his heart as Pat bends to him and everything in Brian suspends, weightless, at the barely-there warmth of Pat's lips on his.

Pat's a tentative kisser, Brian discovers, but tender; his thumbs brush over Brian's cheeks as they just kiss, like that, slow and exploratory. He can feel Pat's inhale when Brian opens his mouth to him, touching his tongue to Pat's lips—the dimple of Pat's fingertips against his skin when Pat tilts his head to a better angle and responds in kind. It's—sweet, a steady drip of pleasure that suffuses through Brian, perfect in how unremarkable it is.

Pat's eyes are closed when Brian pulls away, blinking open as if finally waking. Brian smiles at the vulnerable expression on his face, totally bare, eyes darting back and forth between Brian's with their close proximity. His hands drop to Brian's shoulders, and Brian cover them with his own.

"Fuckin—we wasted _Auld Lang Syne_ on that one," Brian says, and Pat's smile breaks open into a laugh, pulling Brian in to wrap his arms around him and hold him to his chest. "Premature singing, how embarrassing," he whines.

"Happens to everyone," Pat says, and Brian snort-laughs into his shirt. Pat presses his lips to the side of Brian's head, calming and perfect. "Hey, so…" Pat murmurs, and Brian makes an inquisitive noise. He can hear Pat swallow. "Speaking of… I'm not… I'm not super in a place to, uh, you know. Anything more than this."

Brian leans up and catches Pat's lips anyway, keeping it light. Everything in his heart sings with how right it is. "That's fine," he says, when they part. " _This_ is perfect, Pat."

Pat's sigh of relief is tangible, rising and flattening against Brian's chest. "Yeah, it… it is," he says, smiling. "Um, in that case… do you wanna stay over? I've got the best futon a single father can buy."

"I'd love to," Brian says, and takes Pat's hand.


End file.
